I perhaps shouldn't say so, but one of my very favourite coats isn't an EdNerat coat. Rather it is a 60-something year old Harris Tweed that once belonged to my grandmother.
Pictured here about 10 years ago in Moscow, it is delicately coloured in a very subtly purpley-blue. I am not a purple fan, so the colour really is very subtly woven through the herringbone. It has a simple shape – and will literally stand up by itself, so tightly woven is the tweed.
The coat has been worn by at least four women - my grandmother, mother, sister and I. It has been fought over (I won) and seen at least three re-linings – one I recall of my mother's and another two under my watch. Its leather covered buttons were replaced a decade or so ago, and the collar slightly to fashion. But it's still that same coat that my grandmother bought when she came to live in England more than 60 years ago. A Buenos Aires native, she was going to take no chances with the weather.
My mother wearing the Harris, Paris. circa 1979.
The coat still warms and wears today every bit as well as it did all those years ago. It survived and was worn through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, Noughties and beyond. It has lived in Milan, Madrid, London, Brussels, Paris and Wales, spent time in Moscow, New York and DC winters, carried its wearers through smog, rain, sleet and snow and – one presumes – the odd bit of sun.
A well made coat is a judicious purchase. A coat can outlive not just its first owner's years of wear, but carry on for generations. It can be adjusted, re-adjusted and re-lined. With careful design, it can take you through fashions and fads, be worn done and undone, on smart and on relaxed occasions. It can be passed on, treasured and loved or skip through a pre-loved or charity shop.
Think carefully, shop well – and above all treasure your coats.
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